viewpoint

A call to defund Planned Parenthood

On Thursday, Vice President Mike Pence was the tie-breaking vote in a repeal of a regulation implemented just two days before President Barack Obama left office. The regulation Obama passed disallowed states from barring Title X funds from organizations that provide abortion, the most prominent of which would be Planned Parenthood. Overturning such a regulation was certainly an absolute necessity. There is no reason why states should be forced to allocate Title X funds towards abortion providers.

However, while progress was made on Thursday, there is still a substantial amount of work to be done by Congress and President Donald Trump in order to truly stomp out federally subsidized abortion within the United States. I hope and pray that this becomes a top priority for the majority-Republican Congress, as well as Trump.

While the radical abortion lobby and many on the political left argue that the Hyde Amendment prevents tax-payer money from going towards abortions, this is simply a deception tactic. While the Hyde Amendment disallows tax money from going directly towards an abortion service, funds certainly go directly into the pockets of Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood then has the discretion to move funds towards abortion services, which effectively means that tax-payer money contributes to the financing of abortions. Federal tax money is entirely fungible, which allows for such loopholes to take place. After all, without federal tax dollars, Planned Parenthood would not be the single largest abortion provider in the United States.

It is my position, and that of much of the scientific community, I might add, that abortion is the killing of a human life. Therefore, I do not at all see the rationale behind its legalization.

But even if I were forced to accept such a perverse reality as the law of the land, I should, at the very least, be able to refuse financing such a practice that I perceive as murder.

I find most taxation excessive and immoral. However, there is no worse of a moral evil than forcing someone to contribute their hard-earned money to the government where it will be used to perpetuate a practice they view as murderous.

A normal response from the abortion lobby to an argument of this kind is to stress the good that Planned Parenthood does for women. Surely, this is true. It is not as though Planned Parenthood is merely an abortion factory. Many women receive worthwhile and essential services from Planned Parenthood. However, Planned Parenthood is far from the only organization that offers such women’s health services. In fact, there are over thirteen times as many federally qualified health centers as there are Planned Parenthood centers. These federally qualified health centers are effective, properly networked and provide the same exact services as Planned Parenthood, minus the practice of abortion.

Logically, it seems to make sense to shift federal funding to these federally qualified health centers. Women will get the same essential care without allowing tax-payer funds to contribute to abortion. Planned Parenthood and its abortion services could still exist; it would simply have to exist without the aid of federal funds.

I will be supremely disappointed and infuriated if the Trump administration and the Republican-majority Congress are unable to make significant progress on defunding Planned Parenthood. While I believe Trump is far from the perfect representation of the pro-life cause, the political convenience of having Republican control over the legislative and executive branch cannot go unutilized in the pursuit of saving the lives of the unborn. It is despicable enough for the government to ask me and millions of others to live in a society where the unborn are routinely killed. Please stop making us also subsidize such heinous acts.

The views expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Observer.

Eddie is a junior from Orland Park, Illinois. He is majoring in Economics and Political Science with a minor in Constitutional Studies and plans on pursuing law school after his time as an undergraduate at the University of Notre Dame.